Increased proliferation of the Internet in recent decades has spawned a corresponding increase in potential avenues through which undesirable and malicious software may propagate. Collectively called “malware,” such undesirable software entities reside anonymously on host computers to covertly perform their designated task, such as gathering usage patterns, transmitting personal user data, or simply performing malicious corruption of data. Once employed as stand-alone number crunchers for the scientifically and mathematically gifted, modern computers are typically interconnected via the Internet and other networks, facilitating automatic and widespread transmission of data and executable entities (programs) in a manner ripe for exploitation by unscrupulous users.
Many computer users proactively employ security products designed to scan, detect, and prevent malware on their own systems. However, conventional computers each individually employ specific countermeasures, so it can be difficult to assess the existence of malware on an unfamiliar computer absent specific knowledge of the countermeasures in force. One emerging area that highlights concerns over assuring the absence of malware, or so called “trusted” nature of computer systems, is so-called grid computing. In a grid computing environment, computing resources are pooled and allocated to the grid users according to a resource management scheme. Typically, subscribers to such a grid environment receive CPU processing time on a fee-for-services basis. The grid manages available computers as a set of CPU resources, and allocates available computers to meet user requests. Often, such requests are CPU intensive tasks that may require multiple CPUs of the grid environment. Accordingly, a user of such a grid has little control over the trustworthiness of the computer systems to which a particular request is delegated.